Califorina Easter 2014

I know this post is WAY late, but I wanted to make sure to post it and be able to remember it.

 For Easter this year we were able to go to California to spend it with his family. It was so much fun, I had not met his grandma and grandpa or his uncles and aunts, and we were able to spend time with them and get to know them a little more.We were also able to visit Jonnys grandma in the hospital, that was really special for us and for me to meet her. She was not able to speak, but you could tell how happy she was to see us and hold our hands. 

 We were able to even go on a really beautiful bike ride with his uncle Bill. It started at the top of a mountain and ended at the beach. It was really pretty and we just enjoyed each others company on the ride down.

 

  We were able to drive and visit the town that Jonny grew up in Palmdale... It made me miss home not going to lie. There were no trees and in the middle of the town there was a HUGE lake BUT you are not allowed to swim in it because its there city water. When Jonny told me he grew up in the desert, I didn't really believe him.... well now I know. I'm glad we were able to make time to go see the house he grew up in, as well as the elementary , middle, and high school he went to.

 








We went to a famous stop near Jonnys home town Palmdale called Charlie Browns. Jonny always talked about this AWESOME Banana Split, well 4 bananas, chocolate fudge, Carmel, peanut-butter, peanuts, and a few Cherry on top latter we were pretty full.....  ( yep, my friends we ate the entire thing... don't judge). The pic above is Jonny after, I was the same way. This place was packed full of all kinds of crazy stuff, from all types of meats to ostrich eggs to frog legs.   

 In the Holden family there is a collectable corvette that is passed down through generations, and we took it out for the day. We drove through the canyons and national forests, it was so beautiful even if there were not to many trees :P. Since we drove with the roof off Jonny got a nice forehead sunburn, and me well just a little tanner :)... It was so nice to just drive and enjoy the ride, while listening to the radio.

We were so glad that we were able to go to California for Easter this year, seeing the beach was really nice to, BUT I still think the Atlantic beaches are better :). Easter dinner was also a really nice as well, it was fun hearing the story's of the Holdens.The trip was a lot of fun and needed. California is a pretty cool place, to bad its so expensive to live there.

BABY COLTON

Baby Colton has finally arrived!!!

I can just not get over how cute all my nephews are!!!!! They are all so handsome I am so proud to be their aunt :). Colton Ervin Thomas is 8 pounds 6.3 oz and 21 inches long. Born August 11, 2014 I now have a birthday month buddy ( August is the best). Colton is just as handsome as his dad and even as sweet and loving as him mom :). congrats to the new awesome parents. Im so happy to have another little nephew I can love

SUCH A LITTLE STUD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nauvoo 4th of July 2014

This 4th of July was a really fun and unexpected one, we had a cook out with some friends: Us, Alexa and bear and family, and  Gina and Phil. We brought chocolate pecan pie, that turned out to be a hit we played corn hole and hit baseballs around and just enjoyed each others company. Alexa and bear had just had their twins and it was so much fun to hold them, Jonny looked so handsome holding the little guys:). It was beautiful watching the fireworks over the Mississippi and watching the sunset, even though the firework show only lasted less then 5 min. it was still pretty. Jonny even made us an amazing breakfast to kick start our day.

We decided to drive up to St. Louis with our friends to see the concert ( the fray)  and firework show there. We got there and we went to Lush and Jonny rockets.it was a great but HOT fun trip.

Steam Boat Days

The week of june 10-14 is quite the celebration here in small town Iowa, its STEAM BOAT DAYS :) ! This year the performers where Toby Keith, Christ Young, Jerrod Niemann and a few others but we only saw the country concerts. We got an awesome deal on the tickets and just could not pass up such great country singers.( I mean they are no Brad Paisley but still good :) ) Every night we got there with our lawn chairs and we were super close to each night! I guess that's the perks for living in the middle of no where...  There were concesion stands everywhere and every night we went, we could not have asked for better weather. Our first concert we say was Jerrod Niemann. 

I was so excited I forgot to get a picture of his trailer with his logo on it, but we sat and saw a pre-show by a guy named Dallis Smith, let me tell ya, that boy is going to make it big one day !!! (AMAZING) The concert was really great and we actually ran into one of Jonnys coworkers and his wife. We ended up sitting next to one another and having a great night cheering and singing along. We have actually seen him before in concert and this time, It felt like a lot of his songs were about drinking. IT WAS SO FUNNY, we were sing along to a song that we really liked, and Jonny was really into it. Then Jarrod holds up his glass and says something like, " If you drinking give me a HELL YA.." then Jonny fist pumps the air and yells Hell ya.. not even knowing what he was cheering about. Everyone around us look at him holding his little NON-alcoholic lemonade in his hand, and his coworker and wife who are members of the church just bust out laughing along with me. Jonny is a silly/ fun one to be with and makes every adventure a memorable one.

Our second concert was Chris Young, he was our favorite singer of all. NO songs about getting drunk and drinking. We had so much fun just kicking back in our chairs and singing along to good old love songs :). AND to top off the awesome night we got a funnel cake :):):) YUMMMMMM I sadly pretty much ate the whole thing, but Jonny had some I made sure to share. 

how can anyone ever pass up one of these bad boys !!!!!!!!! The only thing bad that happened  was on the way down to the concert Christ Young broke his arm, so he was not able to play his guitar.

Our last concert we went to was Tobey Keith, Burlington although it is close its far to drive when you work the next morning and it takes 45 min to drive home. With the Tobey Keith I was super excited, but then he started singing all these songs about smoking weed with Willie Nelson and getting high.... He only sung like two of his songs that actually where hits !!!!!!  So I think it is safe to say that we were very disappointed with Tobey Keith, and will prob never go to another one of his concerts again. We were even right next to the stage really close, but after impaired people split 4 drinks on me I was ready to go sit down in our seats. When he played his last song we left because he was not coming out for another song, so we left... well 25 min after his last song while we were walking to the car he plays his Top AMERICA song.... What the heck TOBEY.... so anyway it was fun and the most important thing was I got to spend some time with my best friend in the whole wide world .

Baby Nixon

On April 27, 2014 my brother and sister in law gave me another adorable nephew !!! Nixon Thomas is such a wide eye cutie ! I can not wait to meet him, Ethan and Kaytlin are such cute parents.

Geode State Park

Now that it is finally nice outside, we decided to get out a bit and explore what the area has to offer. We found a famous park called Geode State Park that's famous for all its Geode rocks. In the middle of this park there is a huge, beautiful lake and around the lake is a trial.I wanted to go on the lake trail Jonny was a little hesitant about it and I didn't know why until about a mile in he said, " you know this is a 7 mile hike right?" WHAT was my reaction, none the less WE FINISHED that trail and it was beautiful cool day :) but I do not think we will be making it again for a while.

It was so nice there was benches all along the trail with beautiful lookouts, the lake reminded me of Fontana Lake. There was even a little beach area that you can swim in, we saw lots of fishing boats and people paddle boarding !! It made me wish we had our kayak, or something that water was calling my name !!!!  All along the trial I was looking for the geode rocks, I never found one but maybe one day ill come across one for sure. This was such a fun day trip that Jonny and I got to spend time together and enjoy the outdoors :) It was sooooooo extremely green, its hard to believe this is the same place as it was during winter. The lucky think is this park is only 40 min away so we can go camping or hiking any time we want :)

A Famers Life For Us

This week we did something crazy, Jonny always talks about how his family has chickens up in Minnesota and how he wants to try and raise some, well we decided to take the leap...  we looked up what chickens laid the best and most eggs and we were off to the farm store :). Before we left Jonny and I went out back and started building a little cage coop for the chickens to stay.( Jonny had a whole plan to build them a big wooden Chickens coop/ castle)

  we got 3 different kinds of chicks, California white, Australorps and Barred Rock. We have to admit it we were a little nervous about our dog wanting to eat the little chicks up, but she could not be more excited about the little new additions :) her new favorite thing to do is just to sit in front of there box and watch them. running from side to side trying to get the best view. When we let her outside she is so excited to get back inside and resume her watching post. ( its cute, now we know that he will be good with kids... we think).
We HOPE that all the chicks are girls/ hens but I do think we have at least one Rooster....... :( I do not want a rooster for many reasons 1- they crow and wake me up in the A.M, and i like my sleep. 2- They are mean, and have sharp claws. and 3- THEY DON'T LAY EGGS... so they are useless, we will see how long he lasts if he is a boy. People keep asking me if I am going to name the chicks, and the answer is "no" we did name them all KFC though. The man in the store asked Jonny if I was going to name them, then he proceeded to tell me, " let chickens be chickens." So that is what I'm going to do. :)
We don't know much about chickens, but we will have to learn quick because these things grow so fast I swear you can watch them grow! so far a week in we have not killed any of them yet, we had a close call by almost frying them with a heat lamp, but they are alive and well. I cant wait till we get our first egg, there will diffidently be a post about that one :)